1. Field of the Invention
The present invention relates to apparatuses, methods and programs for display control and, more particularly, to a display control apparatus, method, and program which ensure a high degree of ease of operation after switching between modes for selecting an object displayed on a screen (or window).
2. Description of the Related Art
Personal computers having an audio visual (AV) function have been popular. Some of those personal computers are each provided with a remote control, as an accessory, similar to those of AV apparatuses, such as a television receiver and a hard disk recorder.
With the use of the remote control, a user can change a channel to select a television program displayed on the personal computer or control the volume of a piece of music played on the personal computer. In addition, the user can start a browser and view a web page using the remote control.
During viewing a web page, the user operates an arrow key on the remote control to move a pointer in order to select a linked image or character (or character string). Disadvantageously, the ease of use of the remote control operated in the above-described manner is lower than that of a mouse. To solve the disadvantage, some of the personal computers have a pointer mode and a cursor mode as modes for selection of an object, such as a character or an image. The pointer mode is used to select any object using a pointer. The cursor mode is used to select any object using a cursor.
In the cursor mode, the cursor is displayed such that the cursor selects any one of objects displayed in a window. Each time the arrow key is operated, the cursor is moved such that the selected object is changed to another one. Accordingly, the user repetitively presses up, down, left, and right arrow buttons included in the arrow key until a target object is selected. When the target object is selected, the user operates the remote control to determine the selected object, so that a web page linked to the selected object can be displayed in the window.
Japanese Unexamined Patent Application Publication No. 2006-268201 discloses a technique of obtaining the degree of association between RSS articles and managing the articles in accordance with the degrees of association.